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Originally Posted by wallcraft
How good is Smashwords' ePub and MOBI formatting? Do they have a TOC, and will the Kindle TOC include waypoints?
Is there any way on the Smashwords site for a reader to find out that an ebook is in the Premium Catalog?
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You can get a pretty good idea of formatting by checking out samples. I know the formatting is improving (the first two books I put up, I had to make several changes--the last one, I made one change to get things looking the way I wanted.) The problem, of course, is that some authors/publishers spend more time trying to make it look good--and it can be hard to do. I still don't like the way my books appear on the Adobe reader--the "legal" parts look smushed. But if I fix it for that reader, it gets messed up for some of the other readers. So the reader itself--the way it chooses to display and interpret the file--actually affects the way it looks. I can look at an epub file in three different readers--and that file looks different in each one.
As an author, Smashwords support has been VERY good, and VERY responsive. What I like most is that they are working their tails off to partner, get the word out, and generally run a good business.
As a reader, I'd like a few tweaks (like a forum, a longer book description, and I'd like reviews that don't happen to have a star rating to show up as a review on the book pages. Right now if there is a review, but no star rating, it shows on the main page as no reviews available.)
As a reader, I really like that some small publishers are putting their stuff out there--and I love the sample feature, of course. I also like the 'prude filter." Yeah, I admit it. I use it.
I've found and enjoyed a few books by Indie publishers as well.